Conventional cartridges used in firearms are relatively rugged, and many multicartridge magazines feed the cartridges out of the magazine by pressure on a row of cartridges against a stop, which stop is often called feed lips.
The present invention pertains to projectiles other than such cartridges, such as conventional pellets, other pellet-like projectiles, and marking projectiles commonly called paint balls. The guns with which such projectiles are used are usually gas or spring operated.
Conventional pellets are used for target practice, amusement, and the like and other purposes. Paint balls are used by veterinarians and wild life management personnel to mark and otherwise control animals. Another very popular use for paint balls is a sport which has been increasing in popularity in recent years. This sport usually involves groups of participants or players formed into two or more sides, with the sides engaging in a mock combat. Each player is armed with a suitable gun, usually gas operated, and the gun fires the spherical frangible liquid filled projectiles containing a paint or dye called paint balls. The idea is to hit and mark and thus "kill" an opponent, without actually doing any injury to such opponent.
In all of these environments, it is desirable that a magazine be provided to hold a relatively large number of such projectiles, while not damaging the projectiles, and assuring proper feeding of each projectile, from the first to the last, from the magazine into the gun.
In many of these cases, due to the fragility of the projectiles, these guns typically hold only one projectile at a time, and thus require manual reloading after each shot. Many of these guns fail to provide a self-loading feature, even in the case where a magazine to hold a plurality of the projectiles is provided.
Often such magazines depend upon gravity feed of the projectiles. This is highly undesirable, because it requires one specific orientation only of the magazine with respect to the gun and of the gun in use, because the projectiles can easily jam, and because the total capacity of projectiles, especially of paint balls, tends to be relatively small. Other solutions as to paint balls involve a tape or belt in which the paint balls are preloaded. These solutions are undesirable for many obvious reasons including extra cost, added problems in handling the paint balls, the used belts being debris, and the like.